Amherst College - mellon granthttps://www.amherst.edu/taxonomy/term/3245
enLaure Katsaros Receives Mellon New Directions Fellowship to Study Architectural Designhttps://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/faculty_achievements/node/544964
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span class="drop-cap2">A</span>ssociate Professor of French <a href="https://www.amherst.edu/people/facstaff/lakatsaros">Laure Katsaros</a> has received $262,500 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through its <a href="http://www.mellon.org/grant_programs/programs/higher-education-and-scholarship/new-directions-fellowships">New Directions Fellowship program</a>, which exists to “assist faculty members in the humanities … who seek to acquire systematic training outside their own areas of special interest.” Katsaros’ award will support her in earning a <a href="http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/#/academic-programs/master-in-design-studies/history-and-philosophy-of-design/index.html">master’s degree in the history and philosophy of design</a> from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 2014–15, and in traveling around France to visit several distinctive architectural sites. Her goal is to produce a final project for the master’s program, and eventually a book, tentatively titled <em>Glass Architectures: Utopian Surveillance from Fourier to the Surrealists</em>. </p>
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<img alt="Close-up of Laure Katsaros in front of a bookshelf" class="media-image" height="427" title="" width="640" src="https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/Laure-Katsaros-medium.jpg&amp;__=1398350608" /> </span>
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<br><span class="fine-print">Associate Professor of French Laure Katsaros</span></p>
<p>The courses Katsaros has taught at Amherst since 2002 generally concern 19th- and 20th-century French literature, culture and art. She has developed a scholarly interest in a “distinctly utopian” concept that she calls “self-surveillance”: “the idea of opening up your life for everyone to see.” Today, this might take the form of sharing one’s opinions, interests and biographical data on social-networking websites. But French Surrealist artists of the 1920s and 1930s also embraced opportunities to expose their most intimate thoughts and experiences, going so far as to analyze one another’s dreams. Around that same time, thanks in part to advances in technology, it became relatively easy and fashionable for architects to incorporate large amounts of glass into their building designs. “And, obviously, glass, being transparent, speaks to that new theme of transparency, openness, not keeping any secrets,” Katsaros says. In the summer of 2015, upon completion of her year of coursework at Harvard, she hopes to tour Paris’ famed <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/arts/design/26ouro.html?_r=1&amp;">Maison de Verre</a> (“House of Glass”), which was commissioned by a physician and his wife in the 1920s, designed by Pierre Chareau and used as an artistic and literary salon by the Surrealists.</p>
<p>Katsaros traces the theme of self-surveillance back to radical utopian socialist philosopher <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fourier">Charles Fourier</a> in early-19th-century France. “He absolutely rejected the idea of privacy, of hiding, which we’re so attached to,” she says, and so he outlined a theoretical “architecture that would allow for communal living and the sharing of everything—not just property but also [sexual] partners and children.” Among the short-lived utopian communities later founded by Fourier’s disciples was <a href="http://www.familistere.com/">Le Familistère de Guise</a>, north of Paris, the buildings and grounds of which have recently been restored as a museum. Katsaros (who is originally from a suburb of Paris) would like to visit and study Le Familistère as well.</p>
<p>Also on her itinerary are buildings in the south of France designed by renowned 20th-century architect <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier">Le Corbusier</a>—particularly a communal structure in Marseilles.</p>
<p>“I’ll never have another chance to do something like this,” Katsaros says of the study and travel her New Directions Fellowship will afford her. “I’m really excited about the upcoming year and excited about the ways I hope this is going to enrich both my teaching and my research.”</p>
<p>The professor will be on sabbatical from Amherst for the year and will live near Harvard with her husband and three children, as a full-time graduate student. When she returns to teaching, with her master’s-level understanding of architectural design, she would like some of her courses to focus on buildings in addition to poetry, prose and visual art. She is open to the possibility of teaching courses for Amherst’s <a href="https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/architectural_studies">architectural studies</a> major. And she believes <em>utopia </em>would be a fruitful subject for a series of guest speakers at the college—invited, perhaps, through its <a href="https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/colloquia/copeland_colloquium">Copeland Colloquium</a> or the planned new Humanities Center in Frost Library. “I think that would be a great topic, because it’s very interdisciplinary: it involves political science, literature, the arts, architectural studies,” she says. “And it also goes across borders—there are utopias in every country, every language. I see the move toward a new Humanities Center as a very positive one for these kinds of interdisciplinary, cross-departmental initiatives.” </p>
<p>The Mellon Foundation invites select colleges and universities to nominate faculty members for the New Directions Fellowship annually. Amherst’s Dean of the Faculty Gregory Call nominated Katsaros, who then spent the summer and fall of 2013 preparing a proposal with the help of Mary Ramsay from <a href="https://www.amherst.edu/offices/grants">Foundation &amp; Corporate Relations</a>. After a proposal-review process by scholars in related fields, as well as some budgetary negotiations, Amherst officially received the fellowship award in March. Katsaros is one of only 12 recipients nationwide this year. </p>
<p class="fine-print">Photo by Rob Mattson</p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1929">Laure Katsaros</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/21281">Katsaros</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/14834">Laure A. Katsaros</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/974">french</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/2759">architecture</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/17479">architectural studies</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/8379">utopia</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/3245">mellon grant</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1650">fellowship</a></div></div></div>Thu, 24 Apr 2014 14:41:46 +0000kdduke544964 at https://www.amherst.eduhttps://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/faculty_achievements/node/544964#commentsAmherst and Williams Colleges Receive Mellon Grant To Plan For Faculty Needshttps://www.amherst.edu/news/news_releases/2001/02_2001/node/9558
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="fine-print">February 8, 2001<br>Director of Media Relations<br>413/542-8417</span><span class="fine-print"><br></span> <p>AMHERST, Mass.—The Trustees of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation have approved a grant of $91,000 to Amherst College to use in collaboration with Williams College to help plan to address needs for faculty career enhancement.</p><p>Tom Gerety and Morton Schapiro, the presidents of Amherst and Williams, in their application for this grant, expressed their hope that it would “enable us to examine a broad range of issues that affect faculty during their professional lives, such as juggling teaching and research at a liberal arts college, the challenge of employing new pedagogies and technologies, and the need for long-range professional planning.”</p><p>Amherst’s Faculty Career Enhancement Project will be directed by Rose Olver, L. Stanton Williams ’41 Professor of Psychology and Women’s and Gender Studies, and Michele Barale, Associate Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies. At Williams College, James B. Wood, Willmott Family 3rd Century Professor of History, George R. Goethals, Webster Atwell Class of 1921 Professor of Psychology, and Karen B. Kwitter, Ebenezer Fitch Professor of Astronomy, will oversee the project.</p><p>Founded in 1821, Amherst College enrolls approximately 1,650 students from nearly every state and 48 other countries. Amherst offers the B.A. degree in 33 fields of study. Founded in 1793, Williams College enrolls approximately 2,000 students from nearly every state and 50 other countries. Williams offers the B.A. degree, with 31 majors plus concentrations and special programs. </p><p align="center">### </p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/552">news releases</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/782">faculty</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/2742">planning</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/3245">mellon grant</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/3441">andrew w. mellon foundation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/3844">williams college</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/3845">faculty career enhancement project</a></div></div></div>Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:53:17 +0000htsai109558 at https://www.amherst.eduAmherst College Receives Mellon Grant To Support Advising Programhttps://www.amherst.edu/news/news_releases/2003/02_2003/node/9293
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p class="text-small-gray"><span class="fine-print">February 13, 2003<br>Director of Media Relations<br>413/542-8417</span> </p><p class="text">AMHERST, Mass.—The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded Amherst College a $100,000 grant in support of a new advising program for the sophomore and junior classes. The program, which will begin during the January Interterm period in 2004, will bring panels of alumni and faculty together to speak to students about the best ways to connect their Amherst educations to post-graduate study and career choices. </p><p class="text">Ben Lieber, the dean of students at Amherst, says that the program is designed to help give students broader insights into the kinds of opportunities that are available to them in a variety of different majors. "Too many students have preconceived notions that one has to major in x in order to do y, and in many if not most instances that's simply not true," he notes. "We hope to use our alumni to suggest to students the sheer range of possibilities that almost any major will afford them in later life." </p><p class="text">In the sophomore year, the program will focus on how the choice of majors may—or may not—affect students' future careers. A total of 15 panels will cover a substantial fraction of the majors offered at Amherst, and thus a substantial part of the range of interests—both in terms of major and in terms of possible professions—among the sophomore class. </p><p class="text">The program for the junior class will offer advice on topics such as deciding whether or not to write a senior honors thesis, applying for national and international fellowships during the senior year, and managing the admission process for graduate and professional school. The college is organizing several panels to speak to students about these issues, including a panel with previous recipients of Rhodes, Marshall, Watson, Churchill and Fulbright fellowships. </p><p align="center">###</p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/552">news releases</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/3245">mellon grant</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/3441">andrew w. mellon foundation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4085">advising program</a></div></div></div>Mon, 18 Jun 2007 20:05:04 +0000daustin099293 at https://www.amherst.edu